


Wine & Halvah

by Maxine (WinchesterPooja)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Humor, Boys Kissing, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Cults, Demon Blood Addict Sam Winchester, Drama & Romance, Fake Marriage, Family, Fluff, Friendship, Humor, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Romance, Sam Winchester Detoxing From Demon Blood, Sam Winchester deserves a hug, Season/Series 05, the greatest love story ever told
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26666755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterPooja/pseuds/Maxine
Summary: Dean and Cas are forced to be in a pretend marriage to rescue Sam from a cult. Meanwhile as Sam battles addiction, guilt and grief, he wonders if he and Dean are done for good.When it all unravels, Sam, Dean and Cas discover another one of heaven’s plans for them—a plan that can lead to devastating consequences. A destiny that ends in love and blood. It’s up to them to map the path that they are about to walk on.Two men, an angel, and a million destinies. A pair of brothers at war with fate itself. A man and his angel who have spent eternities in writing their love story. After all, itisthe greatest love story ever told.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	Wine & Halvah

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be my entry for the DCBB but thanks to my thesis I couldn't finish it in time. I've been writing relatively light Destiel fanfic in the last few years as my contribution to the DCBB and this won't be any different. It starts off a little angsty but I promise to ease that off. I am also obsessed with the fake marriage/engagement trope so yeah. This is just me indulging. 
> 
> This fic is canon divergent after season 5. I am still writing my thesis and my guide is still the cause of all my nightmares right now so I will try to update as quickly as I can but please have some mercy haha.
> 
> Many many many thanks to iamremy for betaing this and SPNxBookworm for the cheerleading. You can check out my previous DCBBs in my profile.
> 
> This fic has a lovely piece of art by k6034, the link to which I will post once she puts it on Tumblr.

  
May these vows and this marriage be blessed.  
May it be sweet milk,  
this marriage, like wine and halvah.  
May this marriage offer fruit and shade  
like the date palm.  
May this marriage be full of laughter,  
our every day a day in paradise.  
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,  
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.  
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,  
an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.  
I am out of words to describe  
how spirit mingles in this marriage.

Rumi

**Chapter One: Haze**

**_17th February, 2010 (the night of Famine's defeat)_ **

**_Bobby's Panic Room_ **

Sam's world flits between agony and the void, tremors and spasms, nausea and hunger in cycles rapid enough to get him intolerably dizzy. His sleep is choppy at best and nightmarish at worst with his stomach roiling, headache thrumming with his pulse, and what feels like Satan's personal ice pick digging into his skull.

His heart is broken.

He thought he'd kicked it — gotten rid of the shameful weakness that made him an abomination worthy of being Lucifer's vessel, but it's still in him. It's alive.

He doesn't want this. This addiction. At the same time, he needs it with all his soul — the power, the confidence and everything that he is when he is high on the blood. It's a part of him that he cannot erase. He may be an abomination, but this is who he is. He needs it and he needs it _now_.

He craves more blood — a cup, a spoon, a drop — _anything_ , as tongues of hunger, of desire, whisper into his ears. A voice, soft and soothing, good enough to be right. Good enough to mean beauty.

Colours flit in and out of Sam's vision. He blinks, listens to the familiar voice.

It's Ruby.

 _Just a little more, Sam,_ she says, her voice dripping with kindness and empathy _. You know you want it._

No.

_Just another drop, and the pain will be gone._

Sam swallows, let's out a stuttering breath. "No," he says. "No, no, Ruby. Please."

 _It's good for you, Sam. It will make everything better._ Sam sees a shadow in the corner of his room, a silhouette, and then she's materialising before him, walking to him. There's two of her merging into one and Sam looks away to get rid of the dizziness and nausea even as she approaches him.

She doesn't seem to like the way he looks now either, because she sighs, equal parts frustrated and sympathetic.

 _What's Dean done to you?_ she asks him and he turns to look at her eyes. He can see the sadness in them. The understanding.

She is a demon.

She is a fucking demon and… and what the fuck is Sam doing, thinking she can ever sympathise with him?

He gathers himself, collects all the strength that he can to defy her.

She leans in closer, clearly realising that her charm isn't like it used to be.

 _What has Dean done to you_? she asks Sam again.

Sam swallows, clenches his jaw. He won't give in. He won't slip further down the hole he's dug for himself and his family. He has to do better, starting now.

"It's—" he whispers, breath hitching, "it'sss s'not him." The words are difficult to get out with Sam's tongue stuck in his mouth, thick and dry.

Her eyebrows go up, then she sighs as she comes closer yet. Her hair billows lightly and Sam watches her tongue go over her painted lips. _Oh Sam_ , she says, _you're still trying to be the good little brother. All this after everything Dean did?_

"He's my brother."

_He hurt you._

"Leave."

Ruby throws her head back and lets out a short laugh. _Sure,_ she says, _if you say so. You do know I'm a hallucination, right? I'm here because you made me up. I said the things you believe in._ _  
_  
"N-no!" Sam looks away, chokes on traitorous tears. "N-no! G'away."

 _Hey, now that's not the way to talk to your girlfriend._ Sam's jaw clenches when Ruby's voice isn't hers anymore. Instead it's someone else. Someone who Sam hoped would not pay him a visit.

 _Aw, come on, Sammy,_ says the voice again. Sam swallows against tears.

It's Dean.

 _You gotta at least look at me,_ Dean says _. How else are you gonna see your failures? How you ruined every moment of my life and sent me to hell?_ _  
_  
"No. No, no!"

 _Look at me, Sammy. Look at my fucking face._  
  
"No!"

_I don't think you get it. You don't have an option. I said, **look at me**!_

It's a howl, a devilish shriek from Dean, and Sam flinches, turns on reflex, only to see his brother's form flicker, face melting away like candle wax and leaving behind black, black eyes which burn away in circles, corroding into their sockets.

Sam screams. Neither Dean nor Cas respond, and Sam knows deep in his heart that he's disappointed them beyond measure this time.

No one's going to come for him. No one's going to help him through his ordeal. He brought it on himself—he let his family down. The small family he has left.

Sam continues to scream. He screams and screams and screams until he can't anymore.

**~o~**

Dean's been in the salvage yard an hour when he hears footsteps approach him. He glances at the empty bottle of booze in his hand and straightens up, running a sleeve over his now dry face. What's going on inside Bobby's panic room is bad enough even without Cas finding out how _empty_ or _broken_ or whatever it is that Famine said Dean was, or how Dean feels about this entire fucked up situation.

Dean is aware that it's probably all true — Famine's words to him. God knows he hadn't really taken a moment to think about himself until then, but Famine's diagnosis fits. Dean doesn't really care, though… or at least, he's trying not to, but the turmoil inside of him seems to want things to go differently.

There's no time. No time for any of this. There's enough shit going on with Sam for Dean to have to add to it.

"Dean."

Dean takes a deep breath and turns around to Cas. Cas blinks at Dean, then narrows his eyes as he looks at the empty bottle clutched in Dean's hand.

Dean shakes it at his friend. "I finished it," he says, "so if you came here for some..."

"Sam seems to have fallen asleep," Cas says, ignoring Dean. His trench coat flutters a little bit as a light breeze blows over them and even in the partial darkness Dean realises that he can make out the blue in Cas's eyes. The eyelashes, long and thick.

Dean takes a deep breath, shakes himself out of it. "Guess we should get some shuteye then," he says, "before he wakes up again."

The words almost get stuck in throat. He cannot imagine the agony that Sam must be in, and it makes him sick to even think of it. That Sam is fucking suffering and no one can help. Absolutely no one.

It's unfair. Unfair that he and Sam are always at the centre of this bullshit. True, their lives were never normal but Dean was all right with whatever they had before all of this hit them. He'll happily go back to ganking vampires if he can just get a break from this crap. But nobody seems to want to give it to them.

All they wanted was a piece of normal. But all they have is — as Famine put it so eloquently — a whole load of _nothing_. Nothing at all.

When they head back into Bobby's house Dean beelines to the basement and takes a peek at his sleeping brother from the little window on the door to the panic room. Sam's sleeping, all right, just like Cas had told Dean, but it looks like his sleep is anything but peaceful. He's tossing, squirming, chained to that little bed, and Dean doesn't think this could get any worse.

Well, actually it can. Sam can start seizing like he did the last time.

Panic nudges at Dean through the buzz of his drink, and he realises that he cannot just stand here and watch Sam. Can't watch him writhe and twist, obviously uncomfortable, and in the throes of what seems like a horrible nightmare. Moreover, Dean refuses to be upstairs, sleeping while Sam's in danger of being dead from detox, no matter how pissed he has been with Sam over the past year.

Dean can't get the sleep he talked to Cas about unless he knows that his brother is all right.

Dean sighs. Sometimes he wishes he could resurrect Ruby just to kill her again, because of all the crap she's done. For getting Sam into this… this _horrible_ addiction — for dragging him here and reducing him to an addict. As for Sam… something's broken between them. Something's been broken since a year — since the demon blood and the hotel room and Ruby, and Dean thinks, _this is it_. This is the end of the unit they once were. The Winchesters. Saving people, hunting things. The family business.

They're not a family anymore. They're just two people, lost and lost forever. Sam betrayed Dean, went behind his back and Dean doesn't think he can ever forgive that.

Then again, there's a milder, better part of Dean. The part of him that's the big brother to a dimpled, floppy-haired kid who's always tried to do the right thing. And that part of Dean, however small it is, hopes for Sam to forgive himself for this.

Dean stops to take a breath, unlatches the door, and lets himself into the panic room.

**~o~**

Cas takes a deep breath, Dean's prayer resonating through his mind just like the ghosts of Sam's screams and sobs. Dean's in the panic room now, having told Cas and Bobby that he wants some time alone with Sam, promising to let them know if and when he needs their help.

Bobby's already at the kitchen, warming water to pour into an old hot water bottle. Sam will need it, along with a few other things. Cas knows it's just the first few hours of Sam's detox. It's going to get much, much worse before it gets any better, but that doesn't stop any of them from doing whatever they can for Sam.

Sometimes, Cas finds it difficult to believe that he's here. That he's in an old hunter's kitchen, thinking of ways to eliminate physical pain and suffering for the man he once considered an abomination. A man he associated with everything bad. Lucifer's vessel. A man Cas is now prepared to heal even with his dying grace, not caring if it takes away whatever remains of the thing that makes Cas an angel.

A pair of brothers whom Cas is willing to lose everything for.

He clenches his fist, restless, hoping for Dean to come back soon and let them know how Sam is faring. Dean, as broken as Cas, praying to God. If only Dean knew of Cas's waning faith in his own Father…

Cas can't bring himself to tell Dean about it. He still has the amulet. Dean's amulet. A sign of the affection that Sam and Dean share. Dean's soul had worn it in Hell. It's a part of _Dean_ — not just jewellery or a trinket, and he's now entrusted Cas with it. He's entrusted Cas with a piece of his soul. With his brother. And for all of this God has disappeared. Vanished. Probably left them, and it's all come down to grasping at straws.

Over and above all this…

Cas closes his eyes.

_Brother, you should know something._

_You should know something._

"Cas?"

Cas shakes out of his reverie, thankful for the distraction. Dean is at the door to the basement, tired and heartbroken. Cas takes a step towards him. "How is he, Dean?"

"Not good." Dean's voice cracks but he keeps it together. He nods in the direction of the panic room. "I, uh, need you in there for a minute."

"Of course," says Cas, accepting the hot water bottle from Bobby and moving before Dean can say another word, walking to the stairs with his friend. There are other things to deal with right now than whatever the cherub had said to Cas a few days ago.

_Brother, you should know something. About Dean._

**~o~**

Sam feels a hand on his shoulder, then something warm. His eyes are sticky, too sticky to open and his entire body tremors with aches and pains. There's a voice. A voice whispering to him through the haze of his unconsciousness… but he cannot make out what it says, and he doesn't know what to do. He feels helpless and sick and like a huge failure and a let-down.

 _You failed me,_ Dean says, voice gravelly. _Cas gave up his grace for you. You failed both of us._

"No," Sam whispers, the same thing that he's been saying the whole time to Ruby, because Sam doesn't know what else to say to his brother. It's not unfair for Dean to feel the way he's feeling after everything Sam's done after all.

"No," Sam says again, for good measure, as if that will help.

Dean ignores him. It's cold. Mist everywhere. Like ice. Like the worst winter. Sam's shaking again, spasming everywhere. He wishes he were stronger, that he could stand up for himself, but he knows he has no right.

He's a screw-up. Dad should have just killed him when he'd found out about the demon blood. It's too late now and Sam's a monster—unleashed into this world to destroy everything.

**~o~**

Dean blinks back tears, taking deep breaths when Sam whimpers at his touch. Sam doesn't wake up even with the hot water bag, or when Cas helps Dean get some pain pills down his throat. He's still dreaming, begging, asking for help, and at some point, when Dean hears his name being whispered from Sam's mouth, he almost cannot hold the contents of his stomach down.

They've fought and been awful and petty with each other and somewhere, a terrible, horrible part of Dean is glad that Sam's just as hurt by all of this as he is. That doesn't mean… it doesn't mean that Dean is all right with being the cause of his brother's nightmares.

But Sam seems hurt and scared by everything that's happened until — if not outright, at least subconsciously — and…

Dean stops there. He can't stomach thoughts like this anymore. Right now, he just needs to physically take care of Sam and make sure he doesn't get flung around or choke on his puke. They can deal with the rest later.

"Dean."

Cas's voice is like elixir to Dean's ears and he's not sure of when Cas went from the annoying prick of an angel to best friend, but it happened quicker than Dean could realise it.

Cas is here, soothing and present as always, always by Dean's side since Hell. Dean's heart flutters a little that someone considered him worthy enough to be… to be _his_ guardian angel. That what his mom had said to him while putting him to sleep had been true.

That at least, even with all this clusterfuck, Dean isn't alone.

_Angels are watching over you._

**~o~**

_Brother, you should know something_.

It's a few hours since Dean and Cas decided to spend the night in the panic room so as to look out for Sam. Cas watches Dean sleep with his head at the foot of Sam's too-small metal cot, buried in strong arms that rest on the mattress.

Usually, Dean hates it when Cas watches him sleep, but this time Dean had wanted him around. He'd wanted Cas to watch over him and Sam, and Cas hasn't felt happier doing this for anyone. The Winchesters are taking time away from the rest of the world and Cas is part of the team, helping them do it.

The scene is so vastly different from what Cas had seen the last time in this room. From the things he had done — setting Sam free, and — Cas swallows — lying to Dean. It had been chaos all over, and Cas had believed that he was doing it all for the greater good.

Of course, he had been a fool to think that.

It was Dean who had taught him otherwise. Dean who had shown him the way. Dean, whose soul Cas laid a hand on and never looked back. Dean, the Righteous Man. The older brother. The man whom Castiel has come to cherish and love. So much.

What the cherub said, however, why would he... what could the purpose of it be? A warning? Or a taunt? A challenge for all the fighting they've been doing against their destinies? Or is it a clover leaf, a piece of comfort offered by Cas's brother, to let him know that maybe fate has better things in store?

Better things. No. Those are not better things. Cas cannot bring himself to believe that. Not with the vision he had whilst talking to his brother.

_This is how it was always planned._

Cas squeezes his eyes shut, opens them, and forces himself not to think of it. He turns to look at Sam instead from his corner of the panic room, to focus on other things that are much more important at this moment.

Sam has actually been quiet a few hours now, and he even snored for a while there — a sign that this detox is already going better than the last one.

At least one of Cas's worries has been assuaged.

Dean shifts and gives Cas a peek at his sleeping face. His hair sticks in all directions, mussed by sleep and everything else from today. Cas lets his heart flutter just a little, the feeling unfamiliar to him until a few hours ago.

A feeling that should have been unfamiliar to him for the kind of being that he is. And yet, Cas can't stop thinking about their meeting with the cherub a few hours ago.

**0**

They're in the alleyway behind the restaurant that Cas had identified as a mating ground for humans; the most likely place that they'd catch the cherub who has been making the people of this town kill each other for passion. They'd performed the summoning and sure enough, the cherub had come and greeted them with his _special handshake._

He is, however, quite certain that he is not involved in whatever the lovers are doing to each other once he's marked them.

"Please, brother. Read my mind. Read my mind, you'll see," he says to Cas, desperate to prove his innocence. Cas accepts the offer, decides to confirm the truth with his brother. He connects eyes with the cherub and sees it all; his brother indeed has not been hurting anyone, but marking them. This means something else is causing the incidents in this town.

Disconcerted, Cas is about to pull away when the cherub holds on to him — a desperate, strong hold.

 _"Brother_ ," he says, voice stronger and tad more serious, " _there is something that I think you should know."_ The flashes change, faces meld into each other and Cas watches hearts being marked, all spinning dizzily, changing into something else until it all abruptly ends, stops with Cas standing in an unfamiliar barn.

He squints, looks around and takes in the hostile odours of blood and death, the hair on his arms standing up as he does so. The cherub appears, puts a hand on Cas's chest and there is a ripple around them, an undulating wrinkle in the air as things change.

It becomes like a dream; hazy and slow, like Cas is watching it from under a lake. He sees Dean before him, close enough but yet so far, and surrounded by people. Dead people. The stench of blood hits Cas again, placental and overwhelming and he sees the knife that Dean holds in his hand. It's a knife carved out of the jaw of an animal. The next moment, Cas sees himself there too, right beside Dean, holding him by the wrist, stopping him. Stopping him from… from killing Sam, who is knelt on the dirty floor.

Cas's vision swims and Dean turns to him, eyes black and demonic. His hair is longer, his face still marked by all the handsomeness that God bestowed upon him, but underneath it all, his soul festers. The soul of the righteous man, once beautiful and bright, is now twisted, putrid, reeking of demonic sulphur — a stink so overwhelming that Cas almost experiences a very visceral wave of nausea. He gasps and pulls out, no longer wanting to have to look at whatever this is, but the vision freezes as the cherub holds Cas in.

 _"What is this?"_ Cas asks him, desperate, and if he is honest, a little frightened _. "What are you showing me?"_

 _"Isn't it obvious?"_ the cherub asks Cas. " _Dean is a demon and that is Cain's knife. Dean is Cain."_

_"And… and Sam and I—"_

_"Sam is Abel. As for you, you are Colette."_

Colette. Cas knows who she is. He knows who Cain became. And what happened to Abel, except…

 _"What has this got to do with anything?"_ he asks the cherub. _"Why are you showing me this?"_

 _"Because it's only the greatest love story of all!"_ the cherub whispers roughly, the emotion and awe in him palpable. " _You will be the one to stop Cain from killing Abel,”_ he continues _. “You're Colette, except you won't let him make the mistake in the first place. Oh god, I cannot believe I am in the presence of a true love story between an angel and a demon, I mean with all this love—"_

 _"Please, stop,"_ Cas snaps at his brother, irritated. The cherub looks mildly offended but he keeps quiet.

Meanwhile, Cas tries to process it all as he takes a few deep breaths. _"Brother,"_ he says at long last, _"I am not Dean's spouse. How is this even possible? Is this the truth?"_

 _"Hey, come on, Castiel, I have no reason to lie to you,"_ says the cherub. _"I don't even take sides in this Apocalypse! I just follow what I'm told. I thought you'd want to know that this — you and Dean, are also a high priority order from Heaven. I was asked to mark your hearts tonight. You didn't feel it?"_

 _"No,"_ Cas says, trying to process what he just heard. Him and Dean? Marked in their hearts? Which means… it means they're lovers.

Oh, God.

 _"Brother, you are an angel_ ," says the cherub, voice barely audible through the buzz of Cas's own thoughts. _"Surely you felt me mark you."_

Cas shakes his head, tries to contain himself, tries to listen. _"I did not feel it,"_ he says. _"Must be my dying grace. But… did you say this is top priority?"_

 _"Just like John and Mary,"_ says the cherub, excited again. _"Oh, I love these destinies! Love is so magical, don't you think?"_

Cas ignores him, pushes the next question. _"Are you sure it's Dean and I?"_ he asks.

_"I am. You and Dean are here for the better of each other. You are partners in life and death."_

Cas swallows. _"Are you saying we're lovers?"_

 _"Oh, brother,"_ the cherub shakes his head _, "you all have such a shallow understanding of love! This great emotion… this amazing feeling, it is more than just having sex!"_

Cas feels his eyes widen. _"Am I going to have to have sexual intercourse too? With Dean? I'm not — and — I don't think he will be inclined to—"_

 _"Castiel, you two are not just lovers,"_ the cherub whispers, eyes shining. _"The passion, the sex — that is just a part of what you both can be to each other! There are a million other things about you two, a million other things that those marks on your hearts mean._

 _"Love does not have to be about lust. Soulmates are not always romantic! My job is to create eternal lovers, but you and Dean—you are the only ones whose hearts I have marked, for whom it can be more profound than just that and… oh God,"_ the cherub chokes, voice thick, _"this is just so beautiful, I can't right now."_

While the cherub tries to contain all of his absurd excitement and emotions, Cas takes a deep breath, unable to process what he's hearing. Something about this is not right. It contrasts starkly with what's going on right now.

 _"Brother,"_ he says, _"I thought Sam and Dean were Michael and Lucifer. What about that? Are you sure you have not been hoodwinked into marking me and Dean?"_

 _"No. I haven't,"_ the cherub replies. _"Yes, Sam and Dean are Michael and Lucifer, but then they too are so much more. Cain and Abel. Loki and Thor. Moses and Aaron. Rama and Lakshmana. They bring with them a lot of destinies—far more than you think. A storm awaits. Not one, but many, and in choosing the Winchesters you have chosen to brave them all."_

Cas takes a deep breath. _"Then I'll have it no other way."_

**0**

Cas lets out a sigh and tucks away the encounter into the corner of his mind, once again wondering if Dean noticed anything too. If his heart flutters the same way that Cas's does. If he would ever take Cas as anything other than a friend… or even a lover, though after what the cherub said, that just seems to cheapen it all.

Not just lovers. A bond that is more profound than all of that.

A million lives, a million possibilities which always end the same way.

Cas wonders if this is a part of their fate that Dean would prefer to fight as well. He wonders how it will all work out for them.

Cas wonders how he's supposed to break the news to Dean.

**~o~**

**_24th February, 2010 (A week after Famine was defeated)_ **

**_Jere's Bar_ **

**_Sioux Falls, South Dakota_ **

Sam's at the bar, watching the bartender at work as she pours out a whiskey for him. Through the haze of the cigarette smoke thanks to the chimney of a gentleman who's sitting two places away, Sam can barely make out her features when she smiles at him, but he does return it. She goes back to wipe a spot on the counter and gets to one of the other orders.

Sam takes a sip of the whiskey and lets it burn a path down his throat. The last week had been difficult both physically and mentally for him and Dean. Cas too, it looked like. They'd both been around this time, taking turns to be with Sam and helping him drink water and take his meds and as if all that was not embarrassing enough, they'd even been around whenever Sam needed the bathroom, or was in the danger of throwing up in his sleep. It hadn't been a good few days for whatever dignity Sam had left, but he'd had no other choice on account of barely being able to move his ass from the bed.

Bobby had been there for him too. He'd spoken to Sam through Dean's phone every few hours and it had felt like Sam truly had a father again. He'd also made Sam's food and warmed water for him, readying the couch for when Sam was finally all right to move back upstairs.

None of it took away the guilt that Sam carried. Or the shame for the fact that he'd done this to his family. He'd thought of this enough through the pain and the cramps and the puking and it's back even as he's independent and on his feet now—thoughts that he cannot bear anymore. Thoughts that he needs at least a small break from.

Which is why he's here at a bar, inhaling someone's secondhand smoke and drinking whiskey he could have had at Bobby's place. He needs to spare them of himself for a bit. He needs Dean and Cas and Bobby to be able to get a break from him.

They never said it, but he knows they need it too.

Sam drains the last of his whiskey and signals to the bartender, whose face wavers in the smoke. It's a little ridiculous that anyone would smoke this much inside a bar, but all Sam cares about is the whiskey that the bartender brings over with another smile, then a wink.

He's not sure if she's flirting but he smiles back, hoping she's not. After Jess and Madison, Sam's kinda… stopped. All of it. There was that phase he'd had when Dean went to hell but… that is something Sam doesn't like to think about. He'd thought he'd been doing right, but that isn't even an excuse anymore.

Sam drinks all the whiskey at once and the bar wavers before him—this time just not because of the smoke. He blinks, swallows, signals for another whiskey. Bobby's is at walking distance anyway and Sam… Sam doesn't need Dean anymore to – to save him. He's done enough and Dean should… Dean should rest. It's—

Sam blinks again, looks at the newly poured whiskey, wondering how the drunkenness set in so – so fast? Fast, he thinks. Yes, that's—

He should, oh God, something is wrong, he should call—

Blackness creeps into Sam's peripherals and he blinks again, hard. The bartender is serving the smoking man, the pool table resonates loud laughter and the music thumps against his head and did he… did he not detox?

It's getting dark. Sam turns to look up and manages to steal a glance at the bartender's concerned expression, just before it all goes black.

**~o~**

Dean is watching a _Buffy_ rerun on Bobby's TV when he hears someone enter the room. Sam's gone to the nearest bar to pickle his liver and Bobby can't get to the first floor anymore, so Dean knows exactly who it is even without looking.

He mutes the TV, puts the remote beside him. "Hey, Cas."

He'd avoided talking too much to Cas while Sam detoxed — mostly because he got this nagging feeling that Cas was itching to talk to Dean about something, like _talk_ talk to him, and Dean isn't exactly jonesing for any long conversations right now. It did have to happen at some point though, because Dean can also say it's kind of important.

Dean takes a deep breath and watches Cas settle beside him on the sofa, his eyes on his hands as he leans forward. There's a light stubble on his face and Dean wonders if Cas uses his grace to control his hair growth, or if his angelic abilities give him good knowledge of how to shave and cut his own hair. He'd even asked Cas once, and Cas had thought that was a ridiculous question, as if Dean's just supposed to know these things.

Guess what? Dean doesn't know.

Just like he doesn't know a lot of fucking things. Like why he's sure that Cas is holding a grenade of information that he's about to release onto Dean right now, or why Cas suddenly looks way more handsome than just the regular nerdy, or…

Yeah, Dean doesn't want to think of it anymore.

Cas finally seems to lose interest in his hands but it takes him a lot of effort to straighten up and turn to Dean, his eyes nervous and confused. Dean swallows, smiles at him. "How you doin'?"

"I'm fine," says Cas. "I… Dean, we need to talk."

"Yeah," says Dean. "I know we do. You've been throwing that look at me since we killed Famine." He leans back against the old sofa cushion. "So what's up?"

Cas actually, _actually_ looks at the fucking ceiling and Dean is just about to roll his eyes when Cas explains himself. "I do know that when you ask that, you mean to ask me what has been going on," he says, "but… I needed a moment."

"For?" Dean feels his heart start to beat a tad quicker. Things like this always make him anxious. What the fuck could it be that even Cas is hesitating to talk about? Is it Sam? Is it the Apocalypse? Is it—?

"The cherub told me some things," says Cas, interrupting Dean, his eyes meeting Dean's directly, almost swallowing Dean whole in their gaze.

It takes a moment for Dean to remember the cherub with all of that, and then another moment to compose himself as he clears his throat. "Oh yeah," he says, "Cupid. What about him?"

Cas licks his lip ever so slightly. "Dean," he says, "I don't know how to break this to you… I—" he looks up again, as if asking God for his help, but Dean has to shake that thought off too, because they've been searching for the Big Man for months now but damn if he responds to some Cupid-related problem.

"Dean, I—" Cas hesitates again and Dean turns to him full bodied, extending a hand to Cas's shoulder. He's pretty sure now that this is a big Apocalypse thing and he's nervous too, but they need to know what it is so they can get to sorting it.

"Hey," says Dean, "you know you can tell me, Cas. What is it?"

Cas nods, wipes sweat off his upper lip with the back of his wrist, and takes another deep breath. "The day that we met… we met Cupid, he didn't just mark all those people at the restaurant."

There is a beat of deathly silence after which Cas continues. "He marked two other people. He marked us, Dean. He marked you and I."

**Author's Note:**

> So I’m here a week after that disastrous finale and I’m hella salty and pissed off. For the first time ever, I’m gonna go ahead and say that I’ve written stuff that’s better lmao. A couple years ago at the advice of my therapist I decided to dedicate my fanficcing talents to light-hearted, happy stories only. So if you’re hurting too I hope some of my works will help you feel better. Do check out my DCBBs from the previous years, both romcoms: [Love is Garnish, Love is Blind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21445828) and [The Nikkah](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16697287)  
> Thank you!


End file.
